Another Thought on The NFL Protests

Protests are as American as apple pie, baseball, and neckin' at the drive-in movies.

Protests are supposed to hit you in the gut and make you think.

Protests are legal, especially at work. Workers protest at work all the time in the form of labor strikes, many of which are contractually forbidden, such as teachers, pilots, and sports personalities.

Don't confuse this latest iteration of Kaepernick's protest, as a continuation of his protesting injustice to people of color in America. This latest iteration is a clear and unmistakeable protesting of President Trump, and his statement during a GOP rally in Alabama a week ago. Its hard to blame the players, when the league, and team owners, even the cowboys owner, also protested the President's statement.

My friend pulled out of the football pool, and refuses to watch NFL football saying that this is tearing the country apart. Who is tearing the country apart? The protesters, or the Protested? Who's still showing up for the games, drinking beer, wearing team jerseys? Who's taking this just a little bit too harshly?

The truth can hurt. Whether a person is hurt because they supported President Trump, or even because they, like me, support the Office of the President, or because they don't agree with the original protest, I think this protest has hit a national nerve.

Either our President doesn't agree with the original protest, or he doesn't realize how his statements can affect the country, or he is impressively ignorant of both. Either way, the country has reacted, and is once again deeply divided, not over what the still unemployed Colin Kaeperlin achieved, but what our President said.

If President Trump had said nothing about football last Friday, we football watching citizens, would have less to be aware of, instead we, as a country, have two things to be aware of.

1. We needed to be aware of President Trumps general ignorance to the power of his office, or maybe it is sheer genius on his part, and his response was a planned, and expected social response, either of which is purely divisive, and worse than ignorance.

2. We needed to be aware of social injustice to people of color.

Peace,

Campy Out!


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/09/25/cowboys-players-take-a-knee-with-owner-jerry-jones-before-standing-for-anthem/?utm_term=.a2409835f8ae